Is Tentmaker.org anti-semitic?

August 2, 2006

Tentmaker.org is one of the most well known sites on the web devoted to universalism from a Christian perspective. It has a number of very good historical articles, from olden days Universalists to more modern day authors.

Tentmaker is run by a guy called Gary Amirault. It’s focus is on a biblical Christocentric universalism, for which I have a lot of sympathy. My own universalism is Christocentric and grounded in the New Testament, albeit from a more liberal approach to biblical interpretation.

But I have just been reading a passage which has made me stop and pause. It is in an article about the Doctrine of Inclusion, which is Carlton Pearson‘s slant on universalism. The article, written by Gary himself, is intending to clarify what Christian Universalism means to conservative Christians, who are only hearing about it through the inevitably warped and inadequate lens of mainstream media. Fair enough. What makes me pause is this:

The secular media, dominated by a very liberal Jewish voice is always looking for individuals in Christendom which they can use to mold and shape Christianity according to their views. Anyone who can’t see that the American media is ultra-liberal and dominated with Jewish names is living in Lalaland. And there are a lot of Christians who live in Lalaland.

The kind of Inclusion Message Carlton Pearson has been preaching of late resonates with the liberal Jewish media. Carlton Pearson’s message of Inclusion seems to have taken a very liberal and unbiblical turn from his former Pentecostal days. Homosexuality is no longer unbiblical and an unacceptable life style, it’s the way some folks are born, according to his recent theology. His church, which has dwindled from the thousands to a few hundred since he’s come out of the closet on universalism, has Hindus and Moslem’s attending, according to various sources. It seems Carlton ‘s “Inclusion Message” is going the way of the Unitarian Universalism Association, which once contained hundreds of thousands of Christ-centered and Bible believing people and leadership during its earlier years in the early and mid-eighteen hundreds. But today, one would be hard-pressed to find the roots in this denomination that once were grounded in the Bible.

[snip]

Not all things conservative are good and not all things liberal are bad. Most Christians I know who believe in the Universalism found in the Bible are conservative in their morality. They would see homosexuality, for example, as sin. The liberal Jewish controlled media, would like to get that part of the body of Christ that has embraced universal salvation to accept the homosexual lifestyle. Most Christians I know who teach universal salvation do not agree with this. They believe it is sin.

In the days ahead, the liberal Jewish controlled media is going to give more liberal voices in the message of universalism a lot of positive publicity. There is good and bad in this. Simply bringing attention to this much needed message is good, but the perversion of the message is not good. I ask the reader to go to the message and the Book that contains the message and the God who is the Savior in that message, and not to charismatic personalities Hollywood might use to promote their agenda which is not good to anyone including themselves. The secular media controlled predominantly by liberal Jews have changed the church far more than most Christians are aware of. The American church has been Judaized quite thorough. The secular media wants to control this message just like it has controlled the Evangelical world through the teaching of false teaching of Zionism. Do not let them deceive you.

This actually makes me like Carlton Pearson even more… but more importantly it raises questions about Tentmaker.

I don’t want to link to resources at an anti-semitic site, even if the specific resources are good in and of themselves. It leads credence to the anti-semitic message, and it damages my message in the eyes of my listeners.

Am I overreacting?

What should I do about the resources at Tentmaker which are useful and not anti-semitic?

My belief’s aren’t based on the ideas of the author of Tentmaker, if that’s the question – the site is just a convenient web publisher of some books and articles written by other people. I don’t see any necessary connection between universalism and anti-semitism, and many of the articles on the site are neither anti-semitic nor written by known anti-semites.

I would feel morally obliged not to give any publicity or appearance of support to an anti-semitic message.

Carlton Pearson’s message of Inclusion seems to have taken a very liberal and unbiblical turn from his former Pentecostal days. Homosexuality is no longer unbiblical and an unacceptable life style, it’s the way some folks are born, according to his recent theology. His church, which has dwindled from the thousands to a few hundred since he’s come out of the closet on universalism, has Hindus and Moslem’s attending, according to various sources.

This is quite a change for someone who was at one time a key player in Bush’s faith based programmes!

Gary Amirault is not anti-Semitic; he is married to a Jewess who also runs tentmaker. He is on the other hands very anti-Judaic and I don’t approve of this either and he is in my opinion unnecessarily paranoid. Although he has a right to be conservative, I also find his bashing of homosexuals and people of other religions meaningless and cruel. I agree that heterosexuality is to be preferred, but given what we know today people do not always have that choice. I also see a life with Christ as a whole Higher Dimension (a term borrowed from Carlton Pearson’s previous Church) of life than a life without him. But should we give Hindus and Moslems a cold shoulder if they want to attend our service? How else will they hear of Christ? I believe that Carlton Person is doing the right thing and that it is Gary Amirault who is in the dark on this issue.

I love Tentmaker and Gary but I disagree with some of Gary’s beliefs and opinions such as his take on gays and the liberal media. But Gary is right on target in my opinion about many other issues. For the most part I’ve been so very blessed by the Tentmaker site and it has helped heal my image of God. For this I am very grateful to Gary and all his efforts regarding the site. I just eat the meat and spit out the bones. I take in what rings of truth and disregard the rest.
I don’t think anyone out there is 100% right 100% of the time.

I also love Gary and Tentmaker. They are the ones who brought me into the wonderful peace of universal reconciliation. This is why I am angry at him for the way he writes about homosexuals, Jews and Carlton Pearson because it is so out of character. I have helped them translating some of their articles into Norwegian so that people in my country also can be blessed by them. But I was recently shocked at finding out how narrow-minded I feel he is on these particular issues. If Gary reads this I hope he knows that I support him against accusations of racism, but that I am saddened that our differences are too big for me to follow.

Tentmaker.org is NOT anti-semitic. It is a site that promotes the Victorious Gospel of Jesus Christ for all mankind. Gary Amirault nor anyone else at Tentmaekr is against any race, color or gender. I AM against many traditions of men which negate the Truths of the Bible. So I am against the teaching of Hell, for example. I am also against the teachings of the Pharisees which Jesus and the apostles were also against. That would make Jesus anti-Pharisaic. The Pharisaic party did not die in the first century. It reformed and became Rabbinic Judaism which is exactly the same thing Jesus confronted 2,000 years ago only greatly magnified. Read the Talmud and see. It is wise not to judge what I write without understanding my reasoning. I am also against Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and every other religion, including Christianity. I believe a living relationship with the Living God is the only thing worth having. I find no value in the bondage of human traditions dressed up to look spiritual.

Furthermore, I do not hate homosexuals. God loves them as much as anyone. And I want the best for them as for any other group. I love alcoholics. I want them delivered. I was an alcoholic. I can’t find anything positive to say about being an alcoholic. I would not encourage anyone to become one. And I think the Bible would support that. And I cannot find support for the practice of homosexuality in the Bible. I’ve read a lot of material from liberal pro-homosexual writings seeing if they could reasonably explain away those texts in the bible which appear to prohibit homosexuality. I believe I read the material honestly and believe they really had to twist or ignore too many verses, even in the N.T. I have spoken to pastors who believe homosexuality should be an acceptable lifestyle. I listened earnestly wanting to be convinced. But so far, no one has convinced me the Bible says homosexuality an acceptable lifestyle anymore than they can convince me it’s OK to cheat on my wife. Would God stop loving me if I cheated on my wife? No, but I would cause a lot of pain to a lot of people.

I believe God loves all of us, but I also believe we will receive the fruit of some of our actions. If I drink too much alcohol, I will suffer something. If I abuse my kids, I will suffer something, so will they and the society in which they live. If I mix the teachings of the Pharisees and encourage their laws and mix it with the truth and call it “Judeo-Christian ethics” I will suffer something. Paul said a mixture of law and grace was death.

I have spoken very strongly against what is going on in Palestine and Israel. My news sources are not NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and MSNBC. I find nothing but propaganda from all of them. Get your news from Europe, from Palestinians being mercilessly starved to death and killed for sport like I have been getting and you’ll see why my blogs state what they do. I talk to people in Palestine via email who are presently being starved to death, genocide — and most Americans don’t know it’s going on. If you are getting American news, when it comes to the Middle East, whether Israel, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Afghanistan, etc., it is all propaganda, no better than what a Russian would have gotten during the Soviet Union. And one day, you will all agree with me. I hope it’s not too late when you do.

One more thing, I study history a lot, especially church history. I know a lot about universalism. Universalism as a denomination was very vibrant in the 1800’s in the United States. It died in the twentieth century when it became the UUA. It became very liberal. It followed the same path Carlton Pearson is presently following. I am interested in a Christianity vibrant with the Holy Spirit, not with a spirit of liberalism that says anything goes, don’t worry, be happy. That is not what the Holy Spirit did to me when He redeemed me 21 years ago. I learned what holiness is, not the legalistic Pentecostal version, but a reverence for the things of God. I may not be able to walk the path as clearly as I saw it, but it’s not a path of debauchery. Be careful about what you promote. There is such a thing as responsibility and accountability in the message of Grace. Paul knew how to turn some over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, and Paul had a thing or two to say about the Judaisers who were twisting the truth into a lie. These kind of things are still in the Bible and it would behoove us to incorporate them into our lives. If you would like to know more of my thoughts on this subject, I am always available. I prefer speaking to folks directly rather than stumble across gossip and misinformation on discussion boards. Peace, Gary

Both Carlton Pearson and Gary Amirault have made me extremely nervous in the past with some of their comments. But through prayerful consideration of what they were saying and my personal knowledge of both of them leads me to believe that Carlton’s heart is in the right place. He’s said that homosexuality should be tolerated but not celebrated. But Carlton’s not the subject of this thread so I’ll limit my comments to Gary Amirault. Gary walks a fine line. He’s like ANYBODY ELSE that gets aggrivated by politics. But he’s not antisemitic. He’s doing his best to stay well informed on world events and I really feel he’s trying to avoid partiality and that he’s trying to weigh all of the evidence – wherever it points and however ugly it is or makes any particular individual’s actions look. As I was reading through this thread, I wanted to clarify in my mind what antisemitism is, so I sought input from google. I came across this from google when I sought a definition of anti-semitism:

Hatred, prejudice, oppression, or discrimination against Jews or Judaism. Actually, the term is usually spelled with a capital “S” in “Semitic.” Semites originally meant the descendents of Shem, which include both Jews and Muslims in the Middle East. Now, the term is used mainly to refer to Jews. Alan Dershowitz, in his book “The Case for Israel” defines anti-semitism as “taking a trait or an action that is widespread if not universal, and blaming only the Jews for it.”http://www.religioustolerance.org/gl_a.htm

Prejudice or discrimination against Jews. Auschwitz-Birkenau The largest Nazi death camp, where 1.4 million people were killed between 1942 and 1945. The vast majority were Jews; others murdered in large numbers included Catholics, Gypsies and Soviet prisoners of war. Four hundred thirty thousand Hungarian Jews were killed there in 1944, the year Shula was imprisoned there.http://www.pbs.org/daringtoresist/tgglossary.html

Prejudice against Jews. Christians have long since despised the Jew as the killer of Christ. They were despised in the middle ages as the lenders of money for gain (such usury was forbidden to Christians). Modern antisemitism rose up in the pogroms in Russia and Hungary (1882) and spread across Europe compelling thousands of Jew to flee to the more tolerant Britain and USA. …http://www.embassy.org.nz/encycl/a3aencyc.htm

the intense dislike for and prejudice against Jewish people
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Anti-Semitism (alternatively spelled antisemitism) is hostility towards or prejudice against Jews (not, in common usage, Semites in general — see the Scope section below). This happens on an individual level and goes on to the institutionalized prejudice and persecution once prevalent in European societies, of which the highly explicit ideology of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism was the most extreme form.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism

I really don’t believe that Gary crosses those lines into hating anybody. Again, he’s like anybody else that is getting aggrivated by politics and limited perspectives in the US media. I genuinely feel he’s just asking of all of us to simply look at both sides of the media and not just the pro-Israel side. I’m very pro-Israel and would view myself in the defend Israel at absolutely all costs camp, because I believe in a futurist perspective of Bible prophecy, the book of Revelation, etc. But I’m with Gary that like anybody else, Israel’s not presently walking in all of the perfections of the new birth that Jesus intends for all of us to know the fullness of. I’ve seen Israel do some really shady things, like any Muslim country. One can argue sides or the size of Israel and say that if Israel didn’t act preemptively that it wouldn’t exist any more. But nobody this side of the resurrection is walking in sinless perfection. Politics stink. The newsmedia stinks. And every country in existence probably has some type of war crimes that they’ll answer to God for.

Gary responds and all he can do is say how bad things are for the Palestinians. He is e mailing someone over there who could not possibly be bias. He talks about nothing going on in Israel. Not very balanced and very one sided.

Hitler was an antisemite, Gary Amirault is a great Christian man out there telling people the truth about Jesus and His VICTORIOUS gospel. There’s a vast difference ‘tween the two!!
The apostle Paul had no problems in warning his readers about a certain person or groups of persons who were in deception. I’m also glad that Gary has that same liberty.
Gary, keep it up.

What has happened to the world that simply exposing Jews and Judaism for their actions is labeled as hate? Are Jews above criticism? NO! Jesus Christ denounced the Pharisees very harshly. Was Jesus anti-Semitic for doing so? No.

Gary Amirault is against the Pharisees in the same way Jesus was. If this is being anti-Semitic then I guess I am anti-Semitic as well.

I have only just recently begun to explore the tentmaker website. I lean more in the Messianic camp, so I was disapointed by some of the arguements which were based in Replacement Theology, but I took that with a grain of salt because those aruguments were really not needed to support the main thrust, and besides, Replacement Theology abounds everywhere, so why should I dismiss everyone who believes that the nation of Israel was rejected and replaced by the “Church”.

I look forward to reading more on the topic of Universalism and will probably link to the tentmaker website in the future, but with that caution to my users, “Ignore such and such.”

I am new to this site,and I find the whole subject of universalism unique. I don’t understand how any church cannot at least give this subject the attention it deserves,however,Gary, you are correct that a liberal lifestyle with this teaching can be dangerous for our future generations.Actually this belief should cause us to thrive on the gospel and win the world for Christ to protect them from judgement. May God’s peace be with us all. tom

zionist influence has indeed damaged the evangelical church. Evangelicals deny the humanity of Palestinians. Evangelicals call for wars of aggression against people who are not our enemies.

Further, most people calling themselves “Jewish” are not Semites. Most “Jews” are the descendants of Turko-Slavic converts. Hence, you are misusing the term anti-semitism. Palestinians are Semites and so are Arabs. Thus, supporting Jewish atrocities against Palestinians is anti-semitism.

Just because Gary has a personal bias doesn’t mean you should disregard his teachings. Gary preaches love in Chirst’s name. Gary probably doesn’t beat around the bush. To me, he is far more loving and compassionate than people who teach eternal Hell. He seems to be a very blunt person, who won’t sugar coat things.

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